For Max's Sake
by go-sandy
Summary: Max is only 10 years old. But the problems that followed his birth are timeless.


"Max!" Summer yelled out, dumping the remnants of Doritos into a bowl, containing a variety of other chips that she had left-over since the last time her and Max did this. The 10 year old came running into the kitchen, his dirty-blond head of silky hair bouncing with every hearty step he took.

"Yeah?" he said breathlessly, pausing at the doorway. Summer smiled when she noticed the notepad he was clutching in one hand, an undone sketch of a skyscraper scribbled on it expertly with the pencil he was holding in the other. She nudged her head at the fridge.

"Can you grab a few cokes from the fridge while I raid the kitchen for any other extra calories I can find that will go straight to our hips?"

Max grinned and placed the notepad on the island infront of Summer before marching towards the fridge. Summer looked over the sketch thoroughly and she shook her head with a smile.

"What're you drawing this for?"

Max flipped around and found what she was talking about. "For Dad, you know, when he's done working."

Summer's heart broke at his words and for a few moments she just watched him scanning the fridge. "I used to draw when I was kid."

"What'd you draw?"

"Distorted Barbie dolls and clowns."

Max balanced two coke bottles in one hand before yanking the fridge shut with the other. He threw Summer a questioning glance as he trotted over to her and set the drinks down. "Clowns?"

Summer rolled her eyes at the memory and began to search the cabinets for any sort of junk food. Not finding anything satisfactory, she settled for a few boxes of assorted Granola bars.

"They were supposed to be ponies," she explained, "but my art teacher said it would be best to stick to the story that they were clowns."

Max gave her a side-way glance before smirking and scribbling a few more lines onto the note pad.

Summer looked over at him and sighed, placing a hand on his head. "You're dad's totally gonna love it."

Max beamed, gazing up at her, unsure of his work. "You think…?"

"Hey, since when do you question my judgment? If I say he'll like it, then it's a done deal. Got it?" She raised a brow at him, her hand resting on her hip.

He nodded with a shy smile as he jammed the two coke bottles beneath one arm and grasped onto his notepad and pencil with the other. Summer went on to carry the chips bowl and the boxes of Granola bars as they both made their way into the dim living room, the TV blaring repeats of Seinfeld.

"So what'll it be, Fantastic Four or… Million Dollar Baby?"

Summer raised an eyebrow and smiled to herself, knowing exactly what the answer was going to be.

"Million Dollar Baby."

She smirked and pressed play, having already inserted the DVD. Draping an arm around Max, she leaned back and threw her legs atop the coffee table. "Like father like son."

----

Marissa scrambled out of her car at 2:34 am, stumbling on her self as she tried to keep her eyes open long enough to steer clear of any speeding cars. She cringed as the smell of alcohol filled her nostrils with every breath she took. Had she drunk _that_ much? She never really kept count at those after-parties.

Finally reaching the front door of her home, she twisted the handle and cursed, finding the door locked. Irritated, she pressed her finger to the door bell, pushing it repeatedly, demanding an answer.

With a quick tug, Summer opened the door, her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes wide with agitation. Her finger flew to her lips as she signaled to the drunk blonde to be quiet.

"Wha…?" Marissa slurred, squinting down at Summer. "S'Max asleep?"

Summer rolled her eyes heavily, dragging Marissa in and carefully shutting the door behind her before spinning around and crossing her arms against her chest. "He was," she hissed. "Before you decided to ring the bell to the tune of _We Wish You a Merry Christmas_."

Marissa snorted and began to unbuckle her sandals, humming under her alcohol-filled breath, "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry mischris."

Summer sighed, rubbing her temple tiredly.

Marissa's eyebrows furrowed with great concentration. "Chrimus, chirmas," she began mumbling as she tried to recall the words. Her attention span reducing itself until it was as good as gone, she yawned and looked up at Summer suspiciously. "You look unhappy."

"I am unhappy," Summer said matter-of-factly.

"Okay," Marissa replied, annoyed with her friend. "We all have problems; you don't have to bitch about it, Sum."

Summer's eyes narrowed into thin slits that looked more like knives to Marissa, who hugged herself self-consciously and looked away, suddenly ashamed of what she had said. Summer parted her lips to speak when her eyes caught a glimpse of Max, cuddled up at the top of the stairs, his ears obviously perked up in an attempt to listen to what his drunken mother was saying.

Her eyes softening, Summer walked past Marissa and up the stairs, squatting down in front of the boy. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Max muttered, looking up into Summer's eyes worriedly. "Is she sick?" he asked innocently. "She doesn't sound too well."

"Oh, yeah," Summer said quickly, shrugging. "She'll be fine in the morning. Some adults are just weirder than others."

Max half-smiled at the comment, and Summer could sense his discomfort with the situation. She sighed and threw her hands to his cheeks, squishing them between her hands and redirecting his face so that his eyes were level with hers. "What do you do when you can't sleep?" she questioned him, as if she was testing his memory.

Max let out a muffled sigh as his lips were disheveled between Summer's hands. "Close my eyes and count Gucci bags."

Summer smiled, proud at her student. "And when that doesn't work?"

"Gucci shoes, accessories, etcetera."

"And… when that doesn't work?"

Max smiled slightly at the last choice. "Call you."

"You obviously know the drill, and if you were a girl you'd so be my mini-me. My work here is done." She popped up from her spot and planted a quick kiss on his head.

Turning around, she made to trudge down the stairs, but Max's hesitant voice called back to her. "Aunt Sum?" She tilted her head to the side, nodding at him. "Can you give this to dad when you see him?" From beneath him, he pulled out the notepad with a now complete sketch of the skyscraper, a child's attempt at a signature scribbled on the bottom right corner.

A sorrowful smile played on Summer's face. "Of course I will. But on one condition," she stated, pointing a finger at him. "You draw me one of these, just for me."

Max smiled and nodded, content that the condition was easy to fulfill. She returned the smile before skipping down the stairs. She glanced back up to see that Max had already marched away to bed. Her eyes ran over her surroundings as she searched for Marissa. The familiar sound of someone puking their heart out pierced the silence and Summer sighed, making her way to the front door.

"Good night, Coop," she muttered, letting herself out and quietly shutting the door behind her.

----

4 am, just when Summer was about to drift off into much needed sleep, her cell-phone vibrated on her bed-side table. With a stifled groan, she slipped her head under the pillow, willing it to shut up, but the indecisive shaking was getting to her. She flipped the pillow off her head and lazily reached a hand out, grasping onto the cell-phone and flipping it open.

"Cohen," she mumbled into the phone. "You better have thrown yourself off a cliff and need someone to burry you, because if not, you will after this phone call."

"Summer, it's Anna… her water broke."

Summer's eyes popped open instantly and she rushed from her bed to the closet, flipping through her clothes frantically for something to wear. "Is she okay? Are you in the car? You better be in the car!"

The jeans she was pulling on had reached her thighs when she realized Seth didn't respond. "Cohen? Cohen!"

"Yeah, hey, false alarm. Turns out she just peed her pants, they say involuntarily urinating comes with the last months of pregnancy."

Summer stopped moving completely, and with one sudden burst of a groan, she slammed the cell-phone shut and threw it to the other side of the room. "Ass face!"

----

Summer grumbled under her breath as she dug her heel between the sliding doors of the Newport Group, department of 'Hell with florescent bulbs' as her and Ryan like to put it. The jammed doors finally slid apart just enough for Summer to squeeze herself in, but her coffee still seemed to find away to spill from her thermos and onto her suit sleeve. She groaned and began dabbing it with her other sleeve.

"Monday blues?" Ryan asked, passing by her briskly to a near by computer. He crouched over the desk and began to type in something from a document placed in front of him.

"More like I-am-in-desperate-need-of-coffee-and-not-on-my-sleeve blues," she grunted, taking her suit jacket off once she realized that the coffee was going to leave an unpleasant stain that she wouldn't be comfortable seen in. "I only got 2 hours of sleep last night, Ryan. Two hours. Rage blackouts are threatening to explode through me any second now, and I'm telling you, I don't know if they're stoppable."

Ryan gave her a side-way glance and pressing in a few more letters, he clicked save and sighed, standing straight and looking into her eyes levelly. He gave her a knowing look and she bit down on her lip, nodding.

"How is he?" he asked, his voice unwillingly coarse.

Summer sighed softly and dug into her purse, pulling out the notepad and handing it to Ryan. He gave her a skeptical look and she nudged at the notepad. He flipped it open and his eyes fixed themselves on the perfect sketch of a skyscraper, with his name written on the top of the page. His lips parted slightly and froze that way, and Summer wondered if he was actually breathing. Ryan wondered if he was actually breathing.

"He asked me to give it to you," she explained simply, and he nodded, still staring down at the sketch. "Marissa, however, was too drunk to send you her warm regards."

Ryan sighed, standing straight. "Will you fill in for me?"

"What're you gonna do?"

"I gotta see him," he almost-whispered, his voice desperate along with his eyes, making Summer's heart ache, as if it's fast pounding against her chest actually bruised it. "I need to know he's okay."

"Cecilia's there, it's a Monday, she's working today."

Ryan shook his head. "The housekeeper's not enough, Summer," he said sternly through slightly gritted teeth.

"All right. Go see him. Just… don't bring his hopes down, and get out of there before Marissa catches you lurking around and calls up her lawyer. You know how she gets when you're around, especially after the divorce."

"Summer, seeing her in bed with another man with the excuse that she was intoxicated isn't exactly a potion for an invincible marriage."

"Tell it to Marissa," Summer muttered, and then glared up at him. "Not literally. Don't tell her anything. Do not let her catch you there, and if she does, tell her she's dreaming and wave your hands around like a lunatic. Believe me, works like a charm."

Ryan gave her a tight smile. "Thanks Summer."

Summer nodded. "I know, I know, you owe me one. I'll add it to the tab." He smiled nervously. "Now go before I change my mind."

She watched him as he rushed past a few clients and out of the jammed doors and sighed to herself, picking up the document he was typing from and preparing herself for another day in the shoes of Ryan Atwood.

----


End file.
